Key Theorist Revision

Fanon; "Putting on the white mask"

- loves haloween
- adopting white middle class values
- Jay-Z

Alverado; Representations of black community

- PHD ethnicty ; pity, humorous, dangerous, exotic 
- A black family living on a run-down estate
- Terroism 

Edward Said; Orientalism; The clash between east and west 

- East VS west 
- London riots
- Exotic and virle tribal warriors
- Them and us

Yasmin

1. Does the opening of Yasmin offer a positive or negative representation of British Muslims?

The film Yasmin, was represented in a both positive and negative manner. I believe the film represented British Muslims in a positive manner as on one side the boy wakes up early morning to go pray and wake everyone else up and get its voice across. This shows that some British Muslims are still religious in a way and respect there religion by not going against it and concentrating on there religion. This shows that his personality is different as he doesn't care about driving and working etc. and is committed to his own religion. However on the other hand the film Yasmin also represented British Muslims in a negative manner and this is because Yasmin herself was going against her religion by going to work and driving which is not expected from a Muslim women as most of them are told to stay home and look after there families which is part of there culture. This shows that Yasmin and the boy both have different personalities even though they come from the same religion it shows that how British life has changed her whereas the boy is still committed to his religion even by living in Britain himself. Furthermore we see that they girl goes out in a hijab and her culture clothes, however on the other hand we see her coming in to the park and changing her clothes in to British clothing were she is wearing tight clothes which is totally against Islam religion and shows that she is going against it by doing all this. This links to edward saids theory as it shows a negative representation of the east as this girl is going against her religion. Another example of this is that she starts driving and listen to British music whereas on the other hand the boy is saying his holy words which is total opposite and shows two different personality's. 

Furthermore we see that she goes to the bar which is against Islam tradition as boys or girls are not allowed to enter the bar which shows she took a huge step and goes against it. however on the other hand it shows a positive representation of Yasmin as even though her friend is drinking, she drinks juice which shows she still has a bit of feel for her culture. Also later on she dresses back to her traditional clothes as she doesn't want to disappoint her family by turning home in British clothes

1. To what extent does the opening of Yasmin reinforce or challenge Said’s theory of Orientalism – that the west is superior to the exotic or dangerous east?

Orientalism is the difference between east and west, Edward Said who was born in 1935 and passed away in 2003 argued that the west constructed the meaning of the east and it was different, dangerous and uncivilised. Even though he used this theory in the 70s it is more relevant in today's society as the 9/11 bombings took place.  In the clip of Yasmin it reinforces Said's theory as in the first clip we could see the difference between the east and the west. The west don't want to accept the Muslims in their community as they feel they don't or shouldn't belong in their country.

Personal Response

WWW; trying to bring theory into your answer and addressing the broad question of representation

EBI; lack of detail or depth to the two paragraphs. misunderstanding between mcrobbie/ enpowering women and haunt included butler.

LR; how would MCrobbie + butler respond to the video?

I believe that butler who believes gender roles are a 'performance' and that male and female behaviour is socially constructed rather than the result of biology. meaning that when male and female baby's are born the way we bring the up with pink toys and blue toys helps construct them in how they will be behaving later on as now we don't see males playing with 'Barbie toy.' Seeing the video butler would believe that the way women are represented in the video are due to them being socially constructed by it. This is because for example women in that video warnt always like that but as they turned older the life changed and as we are living in the modern world we see many people behaving like that due to the people that they are around makes them socially constructed like that and that it cannot be blamed to there parents. Angela MCrobbie who is a british cultural theorist known for her work analysing magazines aimed at women and teenager girls in the 80's and 90's. MCrobbie highlights the empowering nature of magazines such as cosmopolitan which is aimed at women and glamour which is also aimed at women taking a different perspective to traditional feminists. This idea of 'popular' feminism fits into the idea of

Post-colonialism

representation of race and ethnicity in the two texts I studied I believe that the ethnicity of both black and white people have come together in the modern world to show equality as the video I have seen about Olympics contains sports where both men/female different races battle together and this shows that in today's culture everyone is treating everyone as their own. on the other hand there was also an unpleasant mix of contempt, misanthropy and thinly disguised racism involved; this is because people believe that this was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but it is likely to be challenged for the organisers to find educated middle-aged mother and a black father living together as a happy family. However i believe in the new modern life it gets classed as a stereotype as we now see white women and black men living together happily.

Negative examples from the video i had seen is that a man was in hospital for few days and was dying for one glass of water, nobody bothered to give him that and he had died due to the nurses being irresponsible. this shows that they don't really care about the patients and let him suffer. on the other hand we saw that the NHS was dancing to show the positive side of it showing how many patients they recur. These examples include; 'Rick Dewsbury's journalistic offal is the latest in a long line of these: from Richard Littlejohn's declaration that the deaths of five women was "no great loss", to Samantha "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" Brick. But it's not the articles themselves that spark my curiosity' This shows how the music video is appealing to people and everyday life on how people are feeling about it by singing songs to show how they feel about the Olympics opening ceremony.